In the packaging machinery industry, a type of machine commonly referred to as a printing machine exists. A printing machine places words or symbols onto a box before it has been erected; that is, while the box is still a knockdown. A knockdown, also referred to in the industry as a flat or a KD, is simply a relatively flat piece of material precut and scored such that it can easily be formed into a box. Typically, knockdowns are placed in bulk into a feeder in a printing machine. Those knockdowns are then transported one at a time to a printer, where the machine directly prints onto the knockdown or places a label, preprinted or printed elsewhere in the machine, onto the knockdown. The knockdowns are then routed into a hopper, where they collect and are periodically removed by a worker.
Printing machines are used for several reasons. A printing machine enables the user to print custom or specific information on a box, such as UPC symbols, descriptions of the contents of the box, or other information. This is especially useful in industries where a range of different products are produced or packaged in one location into boxes of similar size. Printing custom or specific information onto a blank knockdown, or onto a standard knockdown pre-printed with general information, saves inventory costs by reducing the number of different types of knockdowns that must be stored.
A different type of packaging machine commonly referred to as an erecting machine also exists. An erecting machine repetitively erects knockdowns into boxes significantly faster than a person could.
Some users of packaging machinery need to print onto a knockdown and erect it into a box. Currently, to do so that user must purchase and operate both a printing machine and an erecting machine. Using two separate machines for printing and erecting is undesirable for several reasons. First, separate machines place a burden on the facility containing them. Separate machines occupy significant floor space. Separate machines also require separate power feeds, which can restrict the placement of the machines in a packaging facility, or necessitate expensive rewiring of the facility to enable the machines to occupy the most efficient locations relative to one another. Second, separate erecting and printing machines use labor inefficiently. After the hopper in a printing machine fills with printed knockdowns, an operator must stop the printing machine, remove the printed knockdowns from the hopper, and place them into a feeder on the erecting machine. Manually transferring boxes between the machines is time consuming, and substantially limits the speed at which printed or labeled boxes can be erected. Further, manual transfer of knockdowns between machines can be dangerous, as the person moving the knockdowns may need to move them across a busy industrial floor containing heavy machinery, other workers, forklifts, and other potential sources of collision or accident. In addition, manually moving knockdowns from a printing machine to an erecting machine is tedious and dull. Third, the operator can easily place printed knockdowns into an erector backwards, which can jam the machine or lead to boxes sealed at the top and open at the bottom. Both outcomes result in lost production time and wasted material.